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December 2016

December 29, 2016

David Denby of The New Yorker confesses to going 50 years without reading Dickens, largely out of fear that the books wouldn't hold up to his recollections of them. But now he's gone back to them -- and let us all be thankful for it, because it resulted in this lovely piece. Here's a sample:

At last, after many resolutions abandoned, I read “Great Expectations” and fell into a happiness granted rarely to any reader. . . . What I had forgotten was Dickens’s joy in writing, which he shares with the reader. You are rooting for him to take chances, to score, to go for it, to reach for the seemingly irrelevant detail, the louche metaphor. He exhibits so exuberant and generous a degree of writerly candor and companionability that the reader is always loyal to him: this man is happily working to entertain us. The nastiness, which comes more frequently than his reputation would lead you to expect, is itself an aspect of his generosity to the living world. George Orwell remarked in an essay on Dickens, from 1939, that though Dickens had attacked the entire British establishment (law, parliament, nobility, educational system, etc.), no one was personally mad at him. It was almost universally felt that his malice was the underside of his love of sunshine and good people; his rage has as much excited life to it as his celebration of decency and loyalty.

December 25, 2016

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!”

December 24, 2016

The New York Times has a fun story about the two branches of the Dickens Fellowship in New York City -- the Friends of Dickens New York and the Dickens Fellowship of New York -- with quotes from some members who are friends of this blog. Though one group split into two many years ago, they still share a love of Dickens and speculate about reuniting one day.

December 23, 2016

Dale Ahlquist writes at Catholic World Report about G. K. Chesterton's 1931 Christmas radio broadcast, in which he spoke about why Dickens wrote so well about Christmas: because "Dickens is still the only man who exaggerates happiness . . . who talked about Christmas as if it was Christmas."

Though Dickens didn't really invent Christmas, he did have a profound influence on it. Two professors at Kansas State University talk about the book's legacy, as reflected by other Christmas tales such as "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "A Visit from St. Nicholas."

Smithsonian magazine has a feature about how A Christmas Carol reflects Dickens's own charitable mindset and efforts.

Michael Caine talks to GQ about why he did A Muppet Christmas Carol, and his and his family's enduring love for the movie.

On a somber note, I don't generally like to put thoughts in his head, but something tells me that Dickens would be furious about a family being unfairly harassed over the cancellation of a Christmas Carol play.

To end on a more hopeful note, A Christmas Carol inspired these students to collect donations for 150 children in need.

December 21, 2016

This picture book, based on A Christmas Carol, casts Scrooge as a surly sheep who's the bane of the barnyard. (His first name now is, of course, Ebaaanezer.) Antoniak takes quite a few liberties with the story, as you would expect, but his humorous narrative and delightful illustrations capture the spirit of the classic. My favorite part: the drawing of Tiny Tim, who sports an enormous wool Afro. Lots of fun for younger readers.